Courses

General Information

This course is intended for future teachers, but not necessarily those who will specialize in teaching mathematics.  Although intended primarily for those who will teach at the K-8 level, it is valuable as a foundation for K-12 teaching as well.

Math 107 will probably seem like quite a change of pace from your typical math course. It reexamines many of the mathematical ideas with which you are already familiar, placing them in the context of the subject as a whole but in addition viewing them from the perspective of young students first learning them. The emphasis will be on reasoning and communication, and you will do much more written explanation than in a typical math course. Much of the time in class will be spent on interactive work, rather than classical lectures.

This course is taught during both fall and spring semesters.

Admission to the course is by permission of the department. This does not use our online system, but is handled separately by Professor Beals.

Textbook

Textbook:  For current textbook please refer to our Master Textbook List page

Syllabus

Topics to be covered:

Whole number operations

1. Place value
2. Algorithms (standard and invented)
3. Arithmetic in other bases
4. Remainders (different things they can mean)
5. Signed numbers

Ratio and proportion, Measurement
examples to be used in earlier topics; this unit will be used to tie together those ideas

1. Units (choice of units)    
2. Approximation and accuracy    
3. Estimation

Algebra

1. Variables
2. Equations

Some examples from discrete mathematics, probability & statistics and geometry will be used throughout as a way to use these ideas while exploring the other topics.

Archives

Previous semesters:

• Fall 2007, 2008. Professor Beals.
• Fall 2006, Professor Beals.
• Listed first as 103 T1 and then as 107, taught by Professor Beals.

Schedule of Sections